What is Perplexity? Facts, license and pricing (Oct 2026)
Perplexity is aI search with citations in every answer; Pro is $20 a month ($17 billed annually) and Max is $200 ($167 billed annually). License: Proprietary. Facts were read from official pages on Oct 25, 2026 and are Reported, not Tested.
Evidence: Reported. Everything here was read from Perplexity's own pages on 2026-10-25 (America/Chicago). We have not run Perplexity for this page, so it says nothing about quality or speed.
What Perplexity is
Perplexity's pricing hub lists Free ($0, citations on every answer, limited weekly usage), Pro at $17 a month billed annually ($20 monthly) and Max at $167 a month billed annually ($200 monthly per its help center). Pro adds Perplexity Computer access and premium sources; Max adds higher limits on Deep Research and more video creation.
We list Perplexity under AI search and research.
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Perplexity key facts
| Feature | Perplexity |
|---|---|
| Vendor | Perplexity AI |
| License | Proprietary |
| Platforms | Web, apps and Comet browser (per Perplexity) |
| Pricing model | Freemium |
| Free tier | Free: $0, limited weekly usage with citations |
| Evidence | Reported from vendor pages |
Who Perplexity is for
- Good for: People who want cited web answers.
- Good for: Researchers using deep research.
- Skip if: You want an offline or local tool.
How to start with Perplexity
- Open perplexity.ai and try the Free plan.
Perplexity alternatives
- You.com: You.com now presents itself as search and inference infrastructure for AI: web search, answer and research APIs plus an inference router.
- ChatGPT: OpenAI's assistant for chat, writing, images, voice and agent-style work.
- Elicit: AI research assistant that searches academic papers, extracts data and drafts reports; free Basic tier with paid per-user plans.
What we did not verify
- Release date (none published on the pages we read; the date shown is the day we first covered this entry).
- Answer quality (not tested).
- Output quality, speed and reliability of Perplexity: we have not run it for this page.
FAQ
What is Perplexity?
Perplexity's pricing hub lists Free ($0, citations on every answer, limited weekly usage), Pro at $17 a month billed annually ($20 monthly) and Max at $167 a month billed annually ($200 monthly per its help center). Pro adds Perplexity Computer access and premium sources; Max adds higher limits on Deep Research and more video creation.
What license is Perplexity under?
Proprietary. Read from the project's own pages on Oct 25, 2026.
Is Perplexity free?
Free: $0, limited weekly usage with citations. Checked Oct 25, 2026; prices change, so confirm on the vendor's page.
Sources
- Perplexity pricing (fetched 2026-10-25)
- Perplexity Max help center (fetched 2026-10-25)
Related
Page history
- : First published from official pages read on 2026-10-25.
Markdown version for agents: /what-is/perplexity.md
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